Reforming the so-called “deep state” of America’s intelligence and security apparatus constitutes an enthusiastic core objective for President Donald Trump’s second administration. But does Team Trump care to understand where to find the rot?
On paper, MAGA’s commitment to ridding the Deep State of corruption is clear. This week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the creation of the Director’s Initiatives Group devoted to “investigating weaponization, rooting out deep-seeded politicization, exposing unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence, and declassifying information that serves a public interest.” The new DIG is also supposed to streamline the intelligence community to reduce wasteful spending.
Over at the FBI, Director Kash Patel, a fierce MAGA acolyte, has expressed his commitment to purging the bureau of Democratic partisan taint. Patel recently hailed nothing less than the “complete and total annihilation of the weaponization of justice” on his watch. The appointment of the pugnacious MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino as Patel’s deputy was taken by the Trumpian faithful as a sure sign that the FBI would be rigorously cleansed of corruption. Bongino denounced the bureau as “a fully now-corrupt organization” during the Biden presidency. Surely the Patel-Bongino duumvirate would fundamentally reform the FBI?
There’s room to doubt that. There’s one name that’s prominently absent in the new leadership’s public discussions of reforming the bureau: Charlie McGonigal.
Readers of this column will recall that name because it’s attached to the FBI’s worst scandal in modern times. McGonigal, a high-flyer in the bureau, fell into disgrace and worse after his 2018 retirement from the FBI when it was revealed that, while serving as the powerful head of counterintelligence at the New York Field Office, a very, very big bureau job, he got into bed with a top Kremlin oligarch and shady Albanians. He did so for cash.
The McGonigal case never got the media attention it merited. That’s partly because it was complex, and partly because Democrats didn’t want the full implications of this ugly scandal exposed. McGonigal’s career was deeply involved in Russian issues, after all.
In late 2016, his counterspy office in New York participated in the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin, the notorious Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Yet, just a couple of years later, McGonigal was on the payroll of Oleg Deripaska, a leading Kremlin oligarch who featured prominently in that investigation.
Then there’s the strange Albanian angle. While working as the FBI’s counterspy boss in New York, he became friends with Edi Rama, the longtime socialist prime minister of Albania. McGonigal made visits to Albania, ostensibly on FBI business, but what he was really up to remains mysterious. He admitted to taking $255,000 from a former Albanian intelligence operative, but this column exposed that McGonigal, while serving with the FBI, allowed himself to get involved in Albanian politics, for a fee. There’s persuasive evidence that McGonigal was involved in shakedowns with his buddy Rama of Albanian oligarchs, netting millions of dollars. That Rama is best friends with Alex Soros, the top Democratic Party donor, raises troubling questions. That’s not least because, during Rama’s decade-plus in power, his little country has become Europe’s leading center for illegal narcotics.
However, none of that was addressed during McGonigal’s plea deals. The Justice Department showed no interest in the wider implications of the case. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally working for Deripaska. In early 2024, McGonigal received an additional 28-month sentence for concealing his $225,000 payment by Albanian intelligence.
Key questions have gone unasked and unanswered.
How long was McGonigal secretly working for the Kremlin, via Deripaska or anyone else? What exactly did he do for them? How much money did McGonigal receive from Albania, and for what, exactly? How close is his relationship with Rama, and how did that curious partnership start?
It’s imperative that the FBI’s new leadership investigate McGonigal’s full career, looking for what went wrong here, including when and why. That a top bureau official went rogue for more than one foreign government is a big deal — that the corrupt G-Man was employed in counterintelligence at the highest levels takes this scandal to a shocking new level.
At a minimum, the FBI must conduct a deep-dive damage assessment on the McGonigal case, going back decades. There are whispers in counterspy circles that several top-secret classified FBI operations against Russia went belly-up under McGonigal’s leadership. Was this bad luck, or something more nefarious? Intelligence community sources tell me that the FBI’s entire damage assessment of the case involves a single agent, on a part-time basis. If so, that’s laughably inadequate.
The Albanian aspect is just as troubling. Reports that McGonigal took millions of dollars from the leadership of that NATO narco-state are troubling and demand answers. Moreover, what did the Biden administration, which protected Rama and his criminal government from scrutiny, know about McGonigal’s nefarious activities in the Balkans?
Above all, did McGonigal recruit helpers inside the FBI to bolster his flagrant corruption and perhaps worse? Are those individuals still serving in the bureau?
If the FBI’s new leadership is serious about ridding the FBI of corruption, the McGonigal scandal must be rigorously investigated until everyone involved in this affair is identified. We know that the deputy director is aware of McGonigal and his misdeeds. In early 2023, Bongino discussed the case, including its messy Albanian dimension, on his popular podcast. Oddly, however, that episode has since disappeared from his archive website.
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That’s not a good sign.
If Patel and Bongino are sincere in their tough talk about reforming the FBI, they can’t continue the Biden cover-up of the McGonigal case.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.
